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Thursday, 19 February 2015

Belle Maurice...Sacked by the Quarterback!

I'm so pleased to welcome a fellow Liquid Silver Books author today, Belle Maurice. Liquid Silver has a hot series entitled Afternoon Delights and Belle's Sacked By the Quarterback is one of the featured stories.

She's here with a blog about bullying and an interesting moment she experienced in South Korea.
Welcome, Belle!

*****

Once upon a time in South Korea, I taught
kindergarten. My co-teacher came to me one day and said, “I got a call from
Victoria’s mother last night.” Victoria had a tendency to chew her words. Don’t
get me wrong, six months of English immersion kindergarten with me and my
peerless co-teacher Helen, Victoria could speak English on par with an American
five year old.

An American five year old who doesn’t speak
too clearly.

So I’m standing in my classroom with the
kids and Helen. The kids are at their tables on the far side of the room and
we’re by our desks with a little bit of privacy, but the kids do speak English
when Helen says, “Victoria said Chelsea is calling her Big Tongue Toria.”

Name calling is not nice. Bullying is bad.

But seriously, the kid made a joke in a
second language and it was GOOD.

I snorted before I could press my lips
together to keep the rest of my gales of laughter in. Then I got it together
because I had to take Chelsea in the hall and explain to her that we don’t call
people names. Though I really wished I could have congratulated her on her
cleverness, she was using it for evil.

In new release, Sacked By the Quarterback,
Sonny Black commits an act of bullying that dogs him through his career until
he finds the woman he betrayed and makes it up to her. Chelsea made it up to
Victoria because I assigned them to sit together and they had no choice but to
learn to cooperate. I just hope Chelsea held onto that great sense of humor and
that she never used to for evil again.

Blurb: Sonny Black was the star quarterback in high school who couldn't possibly be in love with the geekiest girl in school, Mandy Daws. He'd been seeing her under the guise of chemistry tutoring, but when his buddies found out there was a little more going on, he lied and said she was a slut, wrecking her life and earning her enduring hatred. Eleven years later, Sonny is the star quarterback headed for the Super Bowl despite amazing bad luck that has earned him the nickname Sonny Black Cloud. When someone mentions that the bad luck must stem from someone he failed in the past, the first name that comes to mind is Mandy's. He tracks her down at the small university where she teaches chemistry and tries to seduce, beg, or win her forgiveness, and he needs it before the Super Bowl. Excerpt:

“First of all, I have every right to still be pissed at you. Second, me accepting your apology will not change the stupid things that happen to you on the field.”

“How can you be sure? I have great defenders and I still have the highest sack rate of any quarterback in the NFL. My passes get dropped more frequently. Every time something goes wrong the media resurrects that fumble at the snap from last season.”

“The one where the ball bounced off your fingers three times before you dropped it and all the other players just stared at you?” Mandy snickered and reached for her computer mouse. “I loved that one. I have the gif on my hard drive.”

“I don’t need to see it.”

“I do.” She opened the hard drive and scrolled down the list.

Sonny put his hand over hers.

Mandy’s breath stopped in her throat. God, she had forgotten how electric that felt. In high school, Sonny had been everything she wasn’t. Popular, confident, easy going, calm. Endlessly sexy. Only two girls in their class hadn’t had crushes on him. Of the two, one knew even then she was a lesbian. The other one figured it out later.

“Please don’t play that gif.”

Mandy jerked her hand away from his successfully yanking the mouse onto the floor. She bent over to grab it, but Sonny beat her to it. He’d crouched and reached around her. Bad luck had made him flexible and quicker to react. Any other player plagued by the accidents he’d had wouldn’t have a career at all, let alone be a star player.

He stayed in the crouch as he handed her the mouse, staring up at her with his breathtaking hazel eyes. “I missed you, Mandy.”

“If this is part of you trying to get me to forgive you—” The scent wafting off him was not Irish Springs. It was spicy and hot, and very welcome.

“It’s not.” He put his hands on her knees and Mandy cursed the impulse that had her in a skirt today. His long fingers traced under her hem. “I missed you. You were special.”

“You know what they say about your first.”

“You weren’t my first.”

Mandy bit her lip. He was hers and saying that nobody else measured up was an understatement. Even at seventeen he’d been gentle and generous during sex.

Not so generous in the school hallway though.

“I never should have let you get away.” He skimmed his thumb to the inside of her knee.

“Why? Did you fail chemistry in college?” Her breath was getting short and she couldn’t stop it. The sensation of his thumb between her knees spiraled heat through her body. She could remember the way the leather seats in the back of his father’s car had felt on her bare ass and the texture of his football jersey clutched in her hands.

“You can’t hate me that much.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He slid his hand under her skirt. “Then let me make it up to you.”

“It’s going to take a lot.”

His hand slipped higher on her thigh. She could see the movement of his fingers under her the fabric of her skirt and she swallowed.